Apples: Fruit Spoils
by Zaedah
Summary: Like every good lie, this one is delicious and wrong.


_The third in the Apples theme, spanning multiple categories with sexual tension resolved the Zaedah way._

_First sin: Tony and Ziva..._

_Second sin: Peter and Olivia..._

_Third sin: Charlie and Dani...  
_

* * *

**Apples: Fruit Spoils**

Some people inhabit a phrase like it was invented for them. If adages don't hold true, they don't become clichés and then what would mothers have to spout when rules are broken? And so, with her mother's voice in her ear, she breaks rules number one through six and works his cliché as though Karma was a thing moldable by tainted hands.

Forbidden fruit.

He'd like that, since sweet produce is his deliverance. She had salvation once; liquid sunshine with a bitter bite, granular bravado to chase ghosts away. Self-inflicted, this is the nature of her torment, a choice here accepted and there lamented. His pain is a Christ-like burden, flogged and nailed until innocence spilled with his blood. But there's no room for messiahs during her regularly scheduled breakdowns. Righteousness had been traded freely for powder and burn.

He's broken.

It's worn like Kevlar beneath the peaceful armor where truth is a lie and the lie is life. He thinks she can't see it and seems content with the oversight. In reality, she hadn't intended to. Looking that closely at another only magnifies what is similar in herself. But now she inspects, fingering the cracks to determine how much of her he'll need to fill them. She's not a giver and he'll resist and in the end they'll come out bruised. No matter; she can take it rough.

Three am.

That's the hour when the stars bow and retreat, unwilling to witness her blunder. In the choking dark of an oppressive night, a faceless villain is hauled away as she copies the move, pulling him into an alley to devour the fruit. He tastes of it, the tang and sweet transfers to her lips in evidence that he is, in fact, kissing her back. Except when he walks away she finds the cloud of denial already shrouding him. Like every good lie, this one is delicious and wrong.

The conspiracy.

So many hands trying to wrest the apple from the tree, trying to pry every seed from his core until he can no longer grow. They will grind him down so there's nothing left for her. Others are equally greedy, batting eyes while crowding the roots in hopes of catching him, unconcerned with the consequence that physics declares; to be caught he must fall. He's not hers and she's not them, but she's also not stupid. The minute there's no one else for him to hunt, he'll vanish. He was always a cop, he said. But he wasn't always ruined.

Fruit spoils.

Fundamental truth is inconvenient at any age and her insides have aged so rapidly that her face is nothing she's seen before. Maybe they won't take his life, waiting instead for his intensity to rot him from within. Maybe she'll take what she wants, snap his concentration long enough to give them a clear shot. It frightens her, becoming part of their plan and she doesn't try to touch him again.

For days.

The next time she reaches out, he outruns the cloud and takes the lead. And he's suddenly too deep for her to bother discerning if he had been unwilling or unable to deflect her advance. Does it matter that he's merely borrowed and she'll have to put him back by morning? Does it matter that his expiration date swiftly approaches? They're winning and he knows it. And the surging feeling has a name.

Consolation prize.

Complaining is hard when he's so very present. It's quite a wonder, being the object of his considerable focus. This is not a mistake, so goes her mantra because the morning will bring its own issues without the additive of regret. And it's slow and hurried, paced and frantic like he can't decide how he wants her and opts for everything at once. She broke the first six rules and now he's smashing the rest, in charge of the sin with a determination that pounds the sense out of her.

Apple sacrament.

Tangled in crumpled sheets, she lays smitten with the man slicing the fruit on a dresser. There'll be dust on the skin but she eats of the offering like there's forgiveness in the slickness on her fingers; juice and a few other essential things she won't wash off. Her flesh is a sweet meal after he lets a blood orange drip here, there. Baptism by fire. He can't resist and brings her circle closed again. And in the interest of fairness, she's extending his shelf life.


End file.
